


Hringr

by lmeden



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:46:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/lmeden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is two steps from the idling car when Loki drops down, shifting midair to land on his feet. The man waiting next to the car reaches for his gun, too slow, and Loki springs from his crouch and lunges for her. Her eyes widen and her mouth opens, but her scream is cut off as a strangled gasp when Loki seizes her and, with a flashing smile, drags her away. </p>
<p>Her phone hits the sidewalk and cracks before the flare of light from his magic has faded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cupiscent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupiscent/gifts).



> So... this was halfway inspired by a prompt on the kinkmeme, but it diverged from that inspiration quickly. It's more than halfway inspired by cupiscent's musings on Loki character and his relationships with others - thank you for being so inspiring and for challenging me! - and I'm sticking to that as my reasoning for writing this. Bascially, it's supposed to be "a hilarious angstfest". 
> 
> This fic is almost completely written. I'm rewriting, revising, and adding at the moment, so hopefully the updates will be fast and this will be finished within a week or two. It really isn't that long, anyway. (But, yeah, it's challenging for me to write this one, so it's taking a bit longer than I expected.)
> 
> Also, that "rape/non-con" tag. Though this story will contain strong references to rape and maybe some dubious consent, I don't plan on it actually having rape in it, which would be far too much for me. I wanted to add the tag to cover my bases, but I just wanted to explain it a bit.

Loki feels an itch; a need. It climbs up his spine from somewhere deep within and lodges itself deep within his brain. 

He waits a few days before scratching at it, because he recognizes the sensation; he feels it every time he starts to plan again, every time he has an idea that will not end well or tries to create something that twists out of shape within his grasp. Loki is not so sure that, this time, he wishes to pay heed to the feeling. Perhaps he has grown, learned his lessen. 

Perhaps he will court caution.

But no. The need is too much to bear; he must disturb the Avengers in their perfect tower with all their adoring fans; _fuck_ with them, as the delightful Midgardian saying goes. It has been too peaceful, for too long. The Avengers are growing over-confident. 

Loki taps his fingers against the glass of the window and considers. How best to harry and annoy, until each of the Avengers cannot help but feel useless and defeated? So simple, really. Loki need only take something which belongs to them. 

He smiles slightly, crouched on the miniscule sill running around the outside of Stark Tower. Inside, the Avengers talk and laugh, ignorant of his watchful eyes. Loki shoves away from the glass and spreads wings, throwing himself backwards and into the form of a falcon; he catches himself on a warm updraft and wheels round the Tower, searching for that certain something that will be perfect. 

Searching for the catalyst to this little plan.

-

Darcy squirms, kicking at the sheets and pressing her hands against her eyes to shut out the light. It can’t be morning already. She forces her eyes open and scowls at the ceiling. It is morning, and she has class soon. 

She groans and rolls onto her side, squinting towards the digital clock set into the wall. The digits swim. She shoves the sheets off and rolls to her feet, then walks to the clock. She leans close and the numbers shift into focus.

Late. A half hour late. 

_Shit._

She dashes for a clean pair of sweatpants and a shirt and grabs her phone and shoves her way out of the room. 

“JARVIS!” she shouts as she runs.

“Yes, Ms. Lewis,” the ever-calm voice follows her down the hall. 

Darcy stabs viciously at the button of the elevator. “Can I get a car this morning? I’m late and I have to be in class like, ten minutes ago.” She shoves her hair out of her face, heart pounding. She _hates_ being late. “Please?”

“I will have one sent round, Ms. Lewis.”

“Yes!” The elevator doors slide open and she darts inside. “You’re the best, JARVIS, love ya!”

“Indeed, Ms. Lewis.”

Darcy laughs and her stomach twists as the elevator falls, nearly plummeting. 

\- 

Loki spots her as she steps out of the tower, a slim Midgardian device pressed to her ear. He swoops through the air above, angling his wings to catch the last few words of her conversation. 

“No,” she says, shifting the dark bag slung over her shoulder. 

“No, God no. Do you know the amount of money I’d pay to get away from this class?”

Loki banks. An easy target; she is just distracted enough that she will not know what has hit her, and will not start fighting until it is too late. And, by the color of her dark hair, she is definitely not the Black Widow. 

“Millions, I tell you,” she drawls. “I hate these fucking requirements. I’m so close to being done, too. If you think of a good excuse for me to stay home today, please tell me, because I’ll take anything I can get. I don’t even know why I’m still in school; I should just drop out. These guys would pay me more, I’m sure. Yeah--”

She is two steps from the idling car when Loki drops down, shifting midair to land on his feet. The man waiting next to the car reaches for his gun, too slow, and Loki springs from his crouch and lunges for her. Her eyes widen and her mouth opens, but her scream is cut off as a strangled gasp when Loki seizes her and, with a flashing smile, drags her away. 

Her phone hits the sidewalk and cracks before the flare of light from his magic has faded. 

-

Loki regrets his decision almost immediately as the girl begins twisting in his grasp, spitting and fighting as he carries her through the Between. It is difficult enough to walk the blank spaces himself, let alone carry another through them, especially one who does not want to go. He had expected her to be stunned for a moment longer, at least.

“Be still, child!” he hisses, but her hair is in his mouth and her nails dig into his cheeks, and Loki’s concentration is ruined. He stumbles off course. 

They fall from the Between, back into the skies of Midgard. 

The air is thin and filled with ice, the girl dangles from his fingertips, and they both fall fast. He grips her close - unwilling to lose his hostage so soon, no matter how off-course this kidnapping has run – and concentrates. 

His shift is fast and smooth, creating talons that dig into the girl’s arms and broad wings to bear her weight. She screams as Loki slides down through the clouds, into the city below. The girl twists, still fighting, but he simply curls his talons tighter. 

The buildings come upon them quickly. Loki flares his wings, banking above a flat, high rooftop, and drops the girl onto the gravel. She rolls and scrabbles for purchase. Loki shifts back and strides over to her, seizing her arm and pulling her upright. He scans the skyline, cataloguing shapes and silhouettes. 

There: Stark Tower, home to the Avengers. He scowls. He had intended to be much further away than this. He will have to spell the girl to subdue her. He reaches into the Between and seizes Jörmungandr, his spear, from where he has stored it.

The girl stumbles against him, briefly rests a hand against his armor. He shoves her back and brings Jörmungandr round. 

Here eyes widen as they light upon the spear. Loki smiles. This moment is all the sweeter for her terror. She cannot hope to stop what will come. 

The girl shoves her thick hair out of her eyes and scowls, indignation rising as she glares at him and lifts her chin. “Hey, I’m hurt! You can’t just shove me around like that!”

Loki raises an eyebrow; amused for an instant. “You would try to lie to _me_ , human child? I am the God of Lies. You know very well that, right now, I can do whatever I like with you.”

Her eyes narrow and flick to the curved point of Jörmungandr. “Well, then, douchebag, mind telling me the plan?”

Loki does, as a matter of fact, mind. But her boldness makes him pause in his advance.

“What is your name, mortal girl?”

If he has heard of her, he will know that he has seized a worthy target. If not, he will consider her disposable. His plan changes by the instant; this information may prove crucial.

“I’m not telling you!”

Loki seizes her and steps very close, presses his lips to the shell of her ear, letting Jörmungandr’s cold haft press into her side. The shining blade curls over her shoulder and brushes against her hair. She goes very still, as if to make herself less noticeable, less prey. “You do know,” he says, reaching up and twining fingers through her hair, pricking at the thin skin of her scalp with fingernails grown suddenly sharp, “that I can _make_ you. Please, I beg you, give me a reason.”

She is frozen; Loki can feel her fear beneath his grip and the vital pound of blood beneath her skin. Despite that, she twists a half-inch and presses her own lips to his ear and whispers, “Darcy.”

He pulls back, surprised by her temerity, but calms as he glimpses the terror that lies in her eyes, that she has barely pushed back. 

This girl, this Darcy, is unheard of to him. Unfortunate. He had thought that she might be important, as a car and guard had waited for her outside the tower, but obviously he had been mistaken. Her disappearance will not irk the Avengers as he had intended.

Loki sighs and raises Jörmungandr. Darcy lifts her chin.

Then he stops as a single sound distinguishes itself from the clamour of the Midgardian city. It is the drone of Stark’s machine, the sound his suit of iron makes as it propels him through the air. 

“Oh, _god_ ,” the girl sneers, with Loki’s attention momentarily diverted. “Don’t tell me you’re going to start soliloquizing.”

Loki glances back to her briefly. Fear surges beneath her skin, threatening to burst out and destroy her calm façade. She will be so easy to break. 

He allows himself the smallest of smiles as he turns and glances back over the city. There. He sees the flash of red showing Stark’s approach, and then… something he has not expected. Multiple things. There is the deep green of that hulking creature the humans keep around, the blue and red of the American, and a flash of gold from Mjölnir: Thor. The other humans can only be close behind. Loki’s smile slips. 

The Avengers have come out for this girl, to save her from him. Every one of them. Loki glances back at her. 

She is slim, clad in black. Her hair is dark and it soaks up the sunlight. The breeze wraps it around her face and the rims of her spectacles, veiling features which appear to be somewhat comely. Her name is Darcy, and the Avengers love her. 

Yet Loki has never heard of her. He grabbed her because she had left the building; he caught her because she was vulnerable. 

Weak.

The girl’s - Darcy’s - teeth are clenched, and she can’t seem to look away from him.

Loki looks back to the Avengers, coming closer and only a few buildings away. Well, no need for all this effort to be a waste. 

Loki folds Jörmungandr into the Between and reaches out for Darcy. She flinches, trying to pull away, but her seizes her too quickly and drags her across the gravel of the rooftop. 

“What… what do you…” Her voice is strangled and desperate. 

Loki brings her to the edge of the building – easily, because of her innate mortal weakness – and turns to look into her eyes. 

“You wish to know my plan?” he whispers. 

She is pale, but her eyes are wildly alive. Her arms twist and she seizes onto his vambraces. “Yes,” she says. “Tell me.”

“I _plan_ ,” Loki drawls, “to make some use of your uselessness.” He smiles broadly. “You have such a lovely scream. It really is the ideal distraction.”

He feels her trying to cling to him, but Loki merely shrugs, throwing her fingers off. He grasps her by the back of her neck and shoves her out over the emptiness beyond the building. He glances over her shoulder. The Avengers have almost arrived; their armor flashes just a few buildings away, and Loki can already see the glow of Stark’s invention. 

He steps sideways, slipping into the nothingness that is the Between, and vanishes.

Darcy’s shriek is enchanting, and echoes through the Between. Loki reaches out and closes the door he stepped through with a pinch, regretting that he cannot, after all, stay to watch her fall. 

-

She can’t hold back the scream; she can’t stop her hands from clawing at the air. It’s not like she can stop this, and she knows it. Darcy screams again, horrified by the thought that _this is it_. 

She’s read this sort of thing before, she can remember it so clearly – halfheartedly flipping through murder mysteries where the detective almost dies (but doesn’t), plodding through war memoirs recommended by friends (but which turned out to be too serious for her). It all flashes through her mind as she tumbles, flailing. The building flashes by, glass flickering in the sunlight, her reflection spinning by. The windows grow brighter and brighter and Darcy feels like she’s being sucked in and spun out all at once. 

She wants to be sick but can’t bring herself to care enough to go through with it. 

Something slams into her, and then she’s dead, destroyed and gone so quickly and easily. 

But as Darcy’s head spins and she blinks upwards, she realizes that she hasn’t died at all, merely been caught midair by a flying man made of metal. 

Her head rolls to the side and she stares up at Iron Man’s impassive visage. The gold fairly glows, a parody of the sun come down to earth, and Darcy thinks wildly of Icarus and his fall. She clutches at the smooth metal of the suit as Stark slows. He slides to a stop, hovering, and his visor lifts. 

“What happened?” he asks, but Darcy can’t even begin to find the words to tell him; she still feels surprised when she thinks that she’s alive. 

So she just pulls Stark closer, vaguely wondering how many of her friends would kill to be rescued like some _damn maiden_ by Tony Stark, and tries not to cry. 

She bites the inside of her cheek, hating herself for feeling so upset. “What do you _think_ happened?” Her voice cracks on the last word, the words spilling meaninglessly from her, and she squeezes Stark’s armor until it digs into her palms. Darcy’s eyes dart from building to building and she realizes that they’re moving, sinking down to the ground. “Where are we going?” she asks. 

“To the ground, don’t worry,” Stark says. 

Darcy frowns at him. “Don’t patronize me,” she snaps, feeling her somposure return by the second. His eyebrows rise.

A moment later she feels the suit rock and shift. “We’re down.”

She pushes against the cold metal of the suit, slips, and nearly bites her tongue off as she struggles from his arms. 

“Hey, wait, don’t just—” Stark tries to slow her down, but Darcy can’t stop – she needs to feel the ground beneath her feet, right now, and damn anyone who gets in her way. She practically falls from Stark’s grasp and to her knees on the pavement. 

She takes in a few gulps of breath and shoves to her feet, stumbles, and then sinks down into a crouch. “Okay,” she says, and reaches out to try to find her balance. Her heart is pounding and she has a taste in her mouth like bile. “Okay, so what happened?”

Stark crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “You tell me,” he says. 

Darcy glares up at him. “Well that’s real helpful. _I’m_ the one who was kidnapped! And taken… somewhere.” She bites back the words and forces her thoughts away from the memory of that reeling emptiness, the hungry darkness without end that she was carried through before they fell into the clouds. “And then he threw me off a roof. A roof!” She gestures for emphasis, then falls onto her side and forces herself back up. She struggles to her feet and sways there. “Was that…” She can’t bring herself to say the name. 

“Loki? Yeah,” Stark drawls. 

“It was my brother, indeed,” comes from behind him. Thor strides up and clasps Stark on the shoulder. “Thank you, Man of Iron, for saving my friend.” He turns to look at Darcy, while Stark blinks. “I apologize deeply for whatever harm my brother may have caused you. I am very glad to see you whole and sound.”

Darcy wonders in exactly what condition Thor usually finds his brother’s women.

“Thor, man, you’re getting subtle. How did you sneak up on me like—”

“Darcy Lewis, can I offer you transport back to the tower?” Thor extends a hand smiles. 

“Well,” Darcy says. “That’s more like it.” And if her smile is a bit shaky as she steps toward Thor, she’ll never admit it. 

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we continue. You should check out the warnings, if you haven't yet. No non-con/dub-con this chapter, but violence definitely makes an appearance.

There are few Midgardian beasts worth hunting; the proudest and oldest have long since died – humans, though entertaining, do have the annoying tendency to rise above base instinct - and so Loki has to content himself with inferior prey. Restless, he travels to Midgard’s far north, where the uninhabited wastes lie, and in the echoing quiet he tracks a great beast across the land. 

He meets it finally on the ninth day, slowing his pace to pull Jörmungandr from the Between and prepare himself. The bear slows an turns upon him, shoulders hunched, snarling. 

It is tall – a giant for Midgard, taller than he on all fours; as it raises itself up upon two legs Loki can see that it is more than twice his height. It’s head blocks out the dim sun as it rises and its roar tears through Loki’s ears. He smiles and slips Jörmungandr away; it would take the challenge from this hunt.

He unfolds his daggers instead (unnamed, but no less deadly), crouches low, and moves forward. The bear shifts and falls down to all fours, stained white fur shivering and dark eyes widening. It snaps at Loki and swings a paw, which Loki nimbly rolls under. He comes up near the bear’s chin and slashes, drawing a startlingly bright line of blood forth. It snarls and flinches; its paw slams into Loki’s side and throws him down. 

Claws screech across Loki’s armor and he twists, sliding out from the appendage the size of his chest and past claws no shorter than the blades of his own weapons. He knows that is tall by Midgardian standards, and yet this beast… He smiles, baring his teeth in a fierce grin, and rolls up underneath the bear. 

It moves, more quickly than expected for its size, and bites down on Loki’s outstretched arm, hard, flinging him across the hard ground with a flick of its head. Loki’s head spins as he rises, yet his smile has not fallen. 

There is nothing like the hunt. It clears his mind and heart; here he feels truly alive. His minds works completely: it is cataloging the hunt and calculating responses, still able to dart back through his recent memories and evaluate his plans.

That girl; Darcy. He knows she has survived the fall, with the Avengers so close at hand; yet what is he to do with her now? Shall he conceive of some other way to torment the Avengers, rattle them and shake their confidence? Or shall he pursue their weakest point and go after the girl again?

Loki ducks, diving forward into a roll. He crouches under the bear once more, daggers raised, and it throws itself up onto its hind legs, sensing danger and fleeing, for just an instant. Loki latches onto the moment of fear and laughs wildly. The bear shuffles backward and then lowers itself with a great thud that vibrates through the ground and into Loki’s legs. He sways with the sensation and slashes a dagger through one of the bear’s paws. 

Its roar turns to a desperate cry and it flinches back. 

It does not matter, Loki decides. He can do whatever he likes; pursue the girl, or leave her to rot as all Midgardians eventually do. At least, if he kills her, he will save her that indignity. He can imagine her so clearly, lying upon the ground with her black hair spreading around her, her face pale and mouth gaping, red blood seeping into the concrete. Yes; what joys her death would bring. 

Loki is close enough, now; the bear’s fur brushes across his armor and its stink fills his nostril. His heart pounds within his chest and he can taste his own excitement. With a quick move, he gets close to the bear’s stomach – very close – and draw his daggers across its flesh, passing easily through fat and tissue until the scent of excrement fills his nostrils and he pulls his hands back, soaked to the wrist with blood.

The bear groans, a low moan that dies fast in the air over the broad plain they’re standing on. Its entrails slip from its gut, spilling over the ground. It turns and its back foot tangles in the shining curls of muscle. The bear shrieks and its back legs sag. 

Loki steps forward once more and it bats at him, weakening fast. He sidesteps and the bear sinks to the ground, panting, its dark eyes fixed upon him. Loki’s daggers dance across his palms, allowing most of the blood to spin off and splatter upon the ground. He brings them forward once more; moves close to the bear’s panting chest and slices up and in at an angle. 

A whispered spell gives purchase and the daggers slide through muscle and bone, parting fur and sending thick blood pouring out. It warms his fingers till they tingle and Loki closes his hands upon the bear’s heart.

It throbs beneath his grasp, slow and stuttering. Will her heart feel the same – so strong and steady as her life falters? Or will it flutter, delicate and flighty as her eyes fly wide and her breath chokes in her throat and she gasps?

He looks up to the bear’s muzzle, where spots of blood are beginning to clot. Its eyes are wide and unfocussed, and its paws twitch in the last spasms of life. He twists his wrist, and pulls put the heart whole. The bear shudders one final time before dying. 

He folds the heart away into the Between and sends his daggers after it. Perhaps he will return, soon, and skin the creature. 

But for now, there are other hunts; other hearts to grasp and rend. He smiles, his decision made. 

-

 

Loki takes the form of an insect and slips inside when one of the guards enters to “grab some coffee”. Stark has employed more of his mercenaries than usual, it seems; several cluster around each entrance. The precautions are laughable. 

Loki would enjoy a challenge, for once.

He buzzes up close to the ceiling in his miniscule form, inscribing looping circles in the air until he locates the entrance to the tower’s ventilation system. Small as he is, he slips inside easily, moving past every door and protocol designed to keep him out. It is almost enough to make him smile. 

It takes him three days to find her, though. 

Stark Tower was obviously built by a madman. It is labyrinthine in complexity; within each of its many floors, curving halls abound, each of which loops around to connect to the last and the one before that, until Loki is amazed to even consider the fact that rooms are honeycombed into the space. He had once considered Asgard to be a marvel of ill-considered complexity, but the tower that Stark built seems to outdo even that city. 

Loki is forced to search each floor hall by hall and room by room until he finds her; by then he has held the form of a fly for so long that he can barely recall why he came in the first place. 

-

 _Fuck this,_ Darcy thinks: her first response besides a wild surge of fear and adrenaline that wakes her up and makes her realize that she will not, after all, need that coffee.

_Not again._

She clutches her iPhone to her chest and reaches for her Taser. Good thing she’s kept it charged. She almost smiles as she imagines Loki’s face when it hits him.

-

He shifts midair and lands on his feet; Darcy stops dead and her eyes widen. She reaches behind herself and then raises what appears to be a gun. 

Loki stretches into the Between without a thought and grasps Jörmungandr. He ducks as Darcy’s finger tightens over the trigger, smile blooming upon his face, and sweeps the spear out. It catches the gun and sends it clattering across the floor. Darcy moves to dive for it, but Loki stands in a smooth movement, stepping forward and letting Jörmungandr finish its spin, and slams the butt of the spear into Darcy’s chest. 

The breath rushes from her and she stumbles backwards, falling to the floor. 

Loki stands by her feet, looking down. Darcy’s eyes are wide behind her glasses. Loki smiles. 

“Well,” he says calmly, though he knows that the moment he shifted, alarms sounded throughout the tower. The Avengers will be coming to save her again. “We meet again.”

Darcy lifts her chin. “Well, you can just fuck off,” she says. “I don’t know what kind of party you got stood up for, but I’m certainly not going with you. You can leave me alone.”

Loki lets the Jörmungandr press against the floor; he leans down and offers a hand to the girl, his face blank and calm. “I have invited you to nothing, Darcy. You will come with me all the same.”

“They’ll come after me. You won’t get away with this.”

“You have no conception of what I am capable” he says, and a smile flickers across his face. 

With a snarl, she takes his hand.

-

She does not struggle, this time, as her pulls her through the Between. Her fingers clutch like claws at his shoulders, hard enough that he can feel them even through the plates of his armor, and her breath hisses in his ear. Her hatred trembles around him.

“Close your eyes,” he tells her. “You are no use to me mad.”

“I don’t see how I’m any use to you at all,” she pants in reply.

-

In the small park in the center of the city, Loki steps from the nothingness of the Between into the dappled shade beneath summer-fattened trees and lets Darcy to the ground. He rolls his shoulders. 

Loki gestures, and Jörmungandr folds away into nothingness. He removes his helm and it follows. He clasps his hands behind his back and examines Darcy. 

She is slender, with dark hair and fair features. Her glasses have thick rims, but serve more to accent her features than disguise them. Her face is mobile, contorting quickly as flashes of emotion fly across it and illustrate her thoughts. What is it about her that has so drawn the Avengers? Why do they flock to her rescue?

Well, he shall see. 

Darcy’s fingers fist in the thick grass beneath her. “A picnic? Really? You’re a master criminal, or master madman, or super villain or whatever, and all you can think of is to take me on a picnic? That’s such a shame,” she drawls. “I’d heard you had a lot more imagination, Mister Norse-Trickster-God.”

Loki does not understand her references, except the last. He allows himself to fold into a crouch and examines her gaze. It is defiant and curiously calm – not free of fear, but close to it. Somehow, she does not see him as a monster; not yet. 

“I am no god,” he replies. Oh, how little she knows, to still believe that the best and worst of all things lie within godhood. Loki would never confine himself by such a word.

“No.” She smiles then. “And neither is your brother.”

Loki reaches out and grasps her throat, throws her down upon the ground. She attempts to gasp, but cannot draw breath. 

“I have no brother,” Loki tells her, close enough to see how his breath forms crystals of ice upon her spectacles, and then draws back. He shifts smoothly to his feet and steps away. 

Darcy is not clever in the traditional sense – her words are no more nimble than those of other Midgardians, nor do they evidence the kind of skill and thought that comes from a cunning mind. She is no more capable of comprehending Loki than any of the other pathetic mortals on this planet. But there is something sharp about her, something unexpected. 

He takes a few steps away and finds himself glancing back, watching as she raises herself to sitting once more, fingers still twined in blades of grass. It seems that Loki cannot quite comprehend this mortal girl, either. 

Hatred twists within his chest. 

He thinks of the bear’s heart in his hand and his fingers close into a fist. 

Darcy looks up at him and straightens her glasses. “I guess I should say thanks,” she says, sounding anything but grateful. 

He does not bother to respond. 

Her teeth tease at her lip before she continues. “For bringing me here, you know. Choosing somewhere… not high.”

Ah. Her grasp upon the grass has not been an expression of fear or lack of self-control, but rather a profound gratefulness to have solid ground under her feet and close to her touch. Darcy is glad that Loki has not chosen to drop her from a skyscraper again. 

“Well,” Loki drawls, smiling. “I do not like to repeat myself.”

“Yeah, I get so _bored_ when people say the same thing over and over,” Darcy says, rolling her eyes. She shifts to her feet and stumbles a step towards Loki before regaining her balance and stopping. She pulls herself upright and away from him. 

Darcy looks upwards, peering through branches and leaves and shoving her hair out of her eyes. Her mouth turns down in a frown. She looks back to Loki and narrows her eyes. 

“I know this park. We’re still in New York.”

Loki holds her gaze. “That is the name of this city, yes? I do not see your logic.”

Darcy’s eyes roll again and she puts her hands upon her hips, lifting her chin. “Well, from where you’ve dropped us this time, I can walk back to the Tower. Or catch a cab, if I have to. Don’t know why you didn’t pick… I dunno, Vladivostok.”

She turns on her heel and begins to walk away. Loki points to the ground at her feet and spiral of ice lifts from the grass, freezing the blades perfectly within and imprisoning Darcy’s feet. With a shout, she tumbles forward, catching herself on her hands. 

Loki strides over to the girl and grasps an arm, lifting her and allowing the ice to crumble into nothingness. Darcy twists, face twisted in a snarl, but Loki pulls her close before she can gather the momentum to fight. 

“Let. Me. Go.” 

The words are desperate, taut with frustration and anger, but no fear. Loki leans close, opening his mouth.

Just then, Darcy lifts a foot and slams it down on top of his own. It surprises him, and he jolts. She wrenches back, nearly slipping from Loki’s fingers, and he grabs a handful of her hair, hauling him back to him. 

“Do not _fuck_ with me,” he hisses, relishing the sensation of the base Midgardian swear as it falls from his tongue.

She stills, panting, fear beginning to flicker in her gaze. “Why me? At least tell me that.”

He owes her nothing. This he knows; yet he still feels compelled to tell her, to try to explain. But he can smell her fear; her weakness. It is thick and acrid, and pressed so close to her, he cannot escape it. He shoves her away. 

“Remember this, Darcy. I need not let you fall. I can bury you, too.” 

The ground at Darcy’s feet begins to bubble and shift at Loki’s gesture. This is a difficult piece of magic, more subtle and less natural than his manipulation of the ice, and Loki is forced to release Darcy in order to accomplish it. Yet she does not flee; she cannot. 

First Darcy’s feet are swallowed by the earth, then her calves, and as the ground creeps over the top of her knees, Darcy reaches out for Loki, grasping wildly, and shrieks. 

Loki lets the spell go and as its effect dissolve her lifts Darcy from the soil of Midgard. She is flushed and panting, covered with dirt to the knees and smudged with it all else. Her frantic gaze darts around, and she clings to Loki’s armor. 

She is an animal, and beautiful.

But her heart beats so much more wildly than the bear’s, and she poses no threat to Loki. 

Loki turns her away from him and shoves her face first into the Between She tumbles into the nothingness. He catches her up and drags her along, allowing the tear in space to close seamlessly behind him, and drags her back to the halls of Stark Tower. 

He does not step through the door, but sends her tumbling out onto the slick floor. She scrambles for purchase and her gaze meets Loki’s as he reaches out to end the spell and separate them. He smiles.

-


	3. Chapter 3

JARVIS barely gives Darcy a warning before Fury pushes into her room, Tony trailing behind like a lost and curious puppy. He raises his eyebrows at her behind Fury’s back and she forces a smile to her face. He flashes a thumbs up. 

“This is the second time,” Fury barks, and Darcy is hard pressed to hold back her response. _Yes_ , she thinks, _I know_. “Why is Loki so interested in you?”

_If I knew, I’d tell you. Hell, I’d tell myself and do something to stop this shit_. She holds the words in, but Fury seems to want an answer this time, so she repeats them aloud, scowling all the while. She can still feel the tremors in her hands, the sickening sensation of soil sucking her down, crawling up and covering her. 

“What did he say to you?”

Darcy frowns; if they’re going to stop Loki, they have to understand him, but that’s the last thing she wants to do. 

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing, really. He talked if I said something, but didn’t say much more. He didn’t outline his grand, evil, master plan, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“So he said _nothing_? I don’t believe that. Repeat what he said.” Fury scowls. “Exactly.”

Darcy sighs and thinks back. “Well, I said ‘fuck you’, and he said ‘I can bury you’. I said ‘let me go’ and he said that ‘you have no choice, you’re coming with me’. I mentioned Thor and he said ‘I have no brother’.”

“Typical,” Stark sighs, and Fury shoots him a truly vicious look. 

Darcy ignores them both and squeezes her fingers together, trying to remember. “He… he did say that if I was crazy, I wouldn’t be any use to him. But it seems like all he’s been trying to do is make me go crazy.” The last words come out in a whisper, and she doesn’t utter the thought that has just occurred to her. _Maybe he’s testing me? For what?_

Fury doesn’t seem to think the same thing, because the glance he sends her way is cold, evaluating, and dismissive. Darcy has to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. 

“If you’re telling the truth,” Fury begins, and at Darcy’s furious look and the way she surges up from the bed, he changes the end of that sentence quickly. “And I think you are, Loki has been… silent on his objectives. At the moment, we’ll set a guard on you. The Avengers will not be far from your side from now on,” he says. “We _will_ see what he wants, and we’ll make sure he doesn’t come back.”

Darcy bites her tongue as she realizes the order in which Fury had put those priorities; watching Loki first, and stopping him second. She would put all her savings down on the fact that Fury would hand her to Loki if it meant he would get to watch Loki’s expression. 

And now she’ll never be alone. She wouldn’t be surprised if the Black Widow began following her into the bathroom to make sure that Loki didn’t surprise her there. At least Thor is good company; she doesn’t really know the others well enough yet, but the extent of the oncoming privacy invasion is enough to make her shudder.

Well, she probably won’t have to go to school for a while. She’ll have to have Fury sign her note.

“Don’t worry, Darcy, I’ll keep an eye on you.” Stark smiles winningly as he backs toward the door, a few steps behind Fury. 

Darcy scowls at the thought. “Of all people,” she begins, “you are the absolute last –” But then he’s gone, and she cuts herself off. It isn’t worth the effort. 

“JARVIS?” she calls. 

“Yes, Ms. Lewis? I have been instructed to provide you with whatever you need for the next twenty-four hours,” the machine states. Darcy will lay the blame for that time limit on Fury. 

She considers for a moment, what it is that she wants; she could have a quality drink for once, instead of the shit they throw together at her local bar, or a male masseuse to come in and, well, scratch that, because if she asked, JARVIS would probably send up a male escort and charge it to Stark’s account, and though she’d have a lovely night (because she’s sure Stark would only pay for _quality_ hookers), she isn’t in the mood. She smiles, though; she’d love to see that one in the papers. 

She fists a hand in her hair and considers working the tangles out. Probably best to just wash it again. 

She looks up towards the small screen in the wall that she associates with JARVIS. “Can you call Jane? Tell her to come up?”

“Of course, Ms. Lewis.”

JARVIS’s silent, invisible presence disappears, and Darcy buries her face in her hands until she realizes that she can’t see anyone coming, and looks up again with a shudder. 

-

“Get out.”

Loki pays Darcy no heed and steps gingerly from the Between. 

“Get out!”

Darcy throws a book at him; it flutters through the air like a dying bird and lands near his feet. Loki raises an eyebrow, amused by the attempt. Darcy dives for a panel set into the wall and begins pressing the small buttons on it. 

“JARVIS!” she shouts. How like her, to continue to fight Loki’s intentions, though she must know that her efforts are useless. He could keep her around for sheer contrariness; to see her defiance wax as she became accustomed to him. What a splendid feat that would be. 

Loki reaches out and presses the tips of his fingers to the wall, letting his magic flow out and around them. The temperature in the room drops noticeably, and Darcy pulls back from the wall panel with a hiss. 

“I have frozen the circuits surrounding this room,” Loki informs her. “So you need not worry about us being overheard.”

Darcy sends a wicked glare his way. “Fuck off.” 

Loki moves away from the wall and looks away from her. What pathetic quarters: not a single image upon the walls or pattern upon the sheets; there is simply a slim computer, folded upon the bed, and clothes piled on top of the only chair. Loki’s nose wrinkles with distaste.

“I said, fuck off. You’re not wanted here, you know. I don’t want you, Thor doesn’t want you, nobody wants you!” Darcy grabs a small plate off the table near her bed and hurls it at Loki. 

He snarls and bats it aside, rage filling him. It shatters with a burst and crack. How dare she? This common mortal cunt, trying to tell him about Thor? _How dare she?_

Loki strides forward and grabs Darcy’s neck, chocking off her next words. He shoves her down upon the bed and leans into her. She spasms, face purpling as she claws at Loki’s hands. He leans down and presses his lips to her ear. 

“I will carve your tongue out if you try me again,” he hisses, and then lets her go. 

Darcy gasps, a screeching inhale that quells Loki’s fury slightly. Her eyes focus on Loki and she rolls, moving toward him and seizing him. Her hands go for his neck, for his eyes, but Loki bats her away. 

“Why don’t you _kill_ me!” she shrieks. “Just get it over with! I know you want to! Put us all out of our misery!” Her words subside into panting and Loki presses her down into the sheets once more, hands upon her wrists. The tears in the corners of her eyes seem like crystallized hate. 

Darcy’s breath rasps in her chest. Loki recognizes that feeling – hatred so intense that it leaves you breathless, pulling out all the reason and logic and leaving nothing but a snarling, desperate creature. An animal. Loki lets her go. 

A long moment passes. 

“Why won’t you kill me?” she asks again, her voice the barest whisper. “I’m useless: to you, to everyone. I don’t know why you keep coming. And I can’t wait here like this for you to show up. Again, and again, and _again._ ”

She does not sob, but Loki can hear the desperation in her voice. The emptiness. 

“Perhaps I wish to... turn over a new leaf,” Loki rejoins. Darcy’s laugh is harsh and startling. 

“You?” she barks. She rolls onto her eyes and bares her teeth at him in something that does not at all resemble a smile. Loki straightens and stares coldly down at her. “You’re a madman and a villain. You’ll never change.” She pushes her glasses higher onto her nose and wipes her eyes. “One day you’ll grow bored with me and kill me. Maybe on that day the Avengers will be waiting for you and you’ll die instead. We can only hope.”

Her smile turns more genuine, then. Hungry. 

Loki’s hand is on her throat once more, before he can think. “Maybe that day is today,” he says, and magic sparks at the tips of his fingers, cold and burning. He draws his hand down and presses the pads of his fingers against her raised clavicles. Darcy twitches and grits her teeth. Loki watches a sheen of blue begin to spread, devouring the pale warmth of her mortal flesh. 

Her hands press against him, flexing with her strength, yet not at all strong enough to force him away. Her breath rasps in her throat. Loki will not kill her now, though; not yet. He lifts his hand away and watches her writhe and struggle to shove herself away from him on the bed.

Loki stands and pulls his cloak around him. “I will return.” 

“You _pussy_ ,” she snarls at him from the bed. “Just kill me.”

“Indeed.” Loki smiles. He leans down and wraps his fingers around the back of her head, through her thick hair that is so very warm, drawing her up. Her eyes fly wide as he holds her a scant distance away, their breath mingling. She reaches up, but does not attempt to pry Loki’s hand from her. “You will have something to look forward to when I return, then.”

And he vanishes. 

-

Though Darcy gasps and falls to the bed, whirling to search for Loki, he has not left the room. He steps away, drawing an illusion tight about himself and leaning against the nearest wall. 

Darcy surges up from the bed and then stops, staring at the small panel on the wall. Loki expects her to move to it and call for Stark’s machine to help her, but she doesn’t. She remains silent. Loki reaches out with his senses and undoes his own spell, melting the magic that has frozen the circuits around the room. He will not stop her from calling for the Avengers; not now. 

He wants to see their reactions. 

Darcy reaches up and runs her fingers through her hair, grimacing, and looks back to the bed. She sighs and settles back down onto it. Her shoulders slump.

Loki steps away from the wall, magic masking his movement and the whisper of his steps, and catches Darcy’s words, muttered softly to herself. 

“What now? They can’t help.”

She’s right, Loki thinks, the Avengers are of little use. Especially against him.

Darcy shoves off the bed and across the room, through the narrow doorway that leads into what appears to be a small kitchen. She sets water to running in the sink and splashes some onto her face. A sigh shudders from her and she rests her forehead on the metal edge of the sink. 

Loki moves across the room and stands over her; he reaches out and pauses just short of touching her. He can sense the pounding of her heart – still so frantic – and the shortness of her breath. She has not yet recovered from his visit. Just underneath his hand is the tumble of her hair. How does it feel, he wonders. Loki has felt it before, he is sure, when he gripped her neck for strangling or perhaps when he threw her from that skyscraper, but he had not paid attention to the sensation of it. 

Suddenly, a growling sound comes from Darcy and he steps back, wary of madness, before realizing that it is only her stomach. Her hunched shoulders shift, quaking gently; a laugh bursts from her and she pushed back from the sink, giggling and wiping at her eyes.

She sighs and stretches, reaching upwards. 

“Stark, then. At least he’ll make me laugh about it.” She walks away, into the other room.

Loki follows.

-

Darcy presses her fingers against the screen that connects to JARVIS; she hopes it isn’t broken, because she doesn’t know how to fix it and it would be _just like_ Loki to leave her trapped inside her own room with no way of calling out or opening the doors. He’s probably gotten to her iPhone as well. 

But, happily, the screen lightens and JARVIS’ voice comes through, calm and reassuring in a strange, inhuman way.

“Ms. Lewis. Are you all right? A disturbance was detected in the network near your room. Can I be of any assistance?”

Darcy raises an eyebrow as best she can, knowing that JARVIS is probably watching. 

“No, I’m not all right. Where’s Tony Stark?”

“Ms. Lewis, I am afraid that the information you have requested—“

“I don’t care about protocol right now, you damned machine! Loki just came after me, _again_. And this after Tony _promised_ to keep me safe. I want to see him now.” Her voice drops low; she cannot physically express her contempt for Tony’s efforts at the moment.

JARVIS doesn’t reply immediately, so Darcy glances around the room; shattered pieces of her plate lie by the wall and she sighs; walks over to them and stoops to gather them up.

“Of all things that Tony hasn’t given me, right now I think servants are at the top of the list,” she mutters, trying to amuse herself with trivialities; she forces herself to think of little things, _other_ things. 

“I have informed Mr. Stark of your need for him, and he replied that he will ‘be right there’. I have also completed a scan of your quarters and have detected some lingering emissions from Loki’s visit. They will likely fade soon. Would you like to meet with Mr. Stark in some other place?”

Darcy straightens fully and cups the sharp shards of shattered plate in her hands. “No,” she says. “Thanks JARVIS. Here will be fine.” Speaking with JARVIS always brings out her more civilized tendencies; she feels like she’s living in _Pride and Prejudice_ when she speaks to him. Once she’d asked if his code name was Bennett, but he’d completely failed to get the reference. 

She’d like to tease him a bit now, but she just can’t seem to remember anything funny.

“Of course, Ms. Lewis. Is there any other way in which I might be of assistance?”

“No.”

“Simply call if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

Silence falls in the room and Darcy holds her breath. It feels very empty, suddenly. She turns and strides through the kitchen, slamming her heels into the floor, and dumps the pieces of her broken plate into the trash with a clatter. Then she turns back and walks to her bed, sliding onto it with a swish and lifting the cover to her laptop. 

A few clicks has iTunes pulled up and she soon has music playing – a remix of Toxic that thrums through her and begins to unwind the knot of tension that has taken up residence in the pit of her stomach. She flops back on the bed (which she really, _really_ has to make now) and lets her muscles loosen.

She imagines Fury’s heavy steps, thudding down the hall and shaking through the building. What will she say to him? How will he interrogate her? The thoughts makes her grimace, so she tries to think of other things.

Jane had been so excited, a few days ago – she’d said that she had made a discovery, had found something exciting in the latest batch of numbers. Then she’d disappeared. Darcy wonders how she’s faring, cooped up in her lab. Is she eating right? Darcy should go see her and bring along a few of those sinful muffins; as soon as her fingers stop trembling. 

She pulls her hands close and tries to warm herself; it seems a chill has soaked into her bones. 

She imagines Loki, holding her close against his armor-plated body, leaning close and whispering in her ear, “I will return for you, Darcy Lewis. You will rue the day you were careless and walked to your car alone.” His breath is cold and his lips dry as they brush against the shell of her ear, and Darcy jolts, heart pounding out of rhythm with the music as she realizes that the words weren’t her imagination after all; Loki was there, right next to her, whispering in her ear. 

She shoves upright and looks desperately around, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Gone, or invisible. A chill runs through Darcy and nausea roils in her stomach. 

“JARVIS!” she shouts. “Get Tony here now! Or Fury!” _Anyone,_ she almost says. But she won’t get hysterical; not yet. 

“Of course, Ms. Lewis,” JARVIS replies, calm as usual, but this time it only irritates Darcy and sends her pulse racing higher. 

The only one here to help her is a machine, whose only talent is calming people down and being polite. And it isn’t like _she_ can do anything to stop Loki. 

Darcy draws her legs up onto the bed and moves until her back presses against the wall. She wraps her legs around her knees and places her chin on them, watching the air carefully around her. 

If Loki’s still here, he has to be invisible, and Darcy knows how that works – she’s seen Harry Potter too many times to count. She’ll find him. 

He won’t catch her off guard again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next bit probably won't be up until next week - I'll be away on vacation for a bit, so I'll be posting the next part as soon as it's edited and ready. 
> 
> The song that Darcy listens to is [District 78's remix of Toxic.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmjvz-JApS4) I definitely imagine Darcy listening to dubstep to unwind. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long, but so excited to finally post it. Hope you like it!

The plan is simple. 

Two limousines will leave Stark Tower from the underground garage, then drive away in opposite directions. Darcy will be in the back of one, and another girl, who is probably one of Tony’s, in the back of the other. Darcy’s limo will take her as far as possible from Stark Tower. She doesn’t know where they’re going from there. 

She does know that because Fury was involved in creating this plan, it probably involves the helicarrier somehow (it’s like his pet, that thing), and because Tony has been involved, the limos will probably shift into Transformers at an instant’s notice. 

The idea is to get Darcy away from Loki. She doesn’t like to think about how she’s going to have to leave her friends behind for this to work, and how she has to give up her entire life. It seems a bit like witness protection to her; she hopes she won’t have to change her name.

Still, Darcy is vaguely flattered to think that all this technology and effort is on her behalf. She wants to think that it will be enough to fool Loki and get her far, far away; out of his grasp forever. 

But she knows that it won’t be. 

Darcy can sense – in the chill running up the back of her neck and the way her fingers keep curling into fists – that Loki will find her again. She doesn’t know why he’s so fixated, but she knows one thing: that once Loki decides to do something, he won’t stop until he’s done it. And since Darcy is still alive, she knows he isn’t done with her. 

The limo rolls out of the parking garage and light bursts through the tinted windows. The engine is near silent beneath Darcy. She leans forward and covers her eyes, feeling the weight of her backpack (all her belongings, the only things she was allowed to take) against her thigh. 

She can’t fight Loki forever, she knows. But she doesn’t intend to just give in. Maybe… just maybe… Darcy can find a way to bend around his whims, and not break.

A chill passes through the air. Darcy shivers, then jerks upright, her stomach dropping. 

The air in front of Darcy shimmers, then splits open, its maw gaping onto emptiness. Darcy’s nails dig into her palms and she lifts her chin. Loki steps from the opening in the air. He crouches in the limo, his height making him momentarily awkward. 

“You’re a bit tall, there, Alice,” she sneers, voice steady. 

Loki doesn’t pause to respond, but fixes his gaze upon Darcy’s face and lunges forward, pressing Darcy back into the seat, long fingers curling over her mouth and knees forcing her body back. She chokes and fights for breath. 

_What do you want with me?_ she thinks. 

Because she has _nothing_ to offer him; most days, she wonders how Loki even knew she existed in the first place. 

So she forces herself to relax, uncurling his fists and working her jaw slightly looser. Loki’s sharp grip brings tears to her eyes and she concentrates on blinking them away. 

She has a plan, Darcy reminds herself. She is going to bend, not break; she’ll meet Loki halfway and make herself a match for him. She won’t let him destroy her. A kernel of determination roots itself in the pit of Darcy’s stomach and gives her the strength to look into Loki’s pale eyes without flinching. 

He stares back steadily for a long moment. Then his nails draw back, and his fingers, and he lifts his hand from her mouth completely. 

“I tire of your words,” Loki says, his voice almost a whisper.

“Oh,” Darcy returns. She lets herself half-smile. “Well then, you better get yourself another girl, because words are all I’ve got.”

“I think not,” he says, and shifts back. Darcy can’t help but notice that his knees are still pressing her back and that his weight is held steady over top of her. Her breath quickens against her will, and she lifts her hands to push her hair out of her eyes. 

She refuses to give in to panic, or to allow herself to seem anything but calm. “So, what do you want this time? You’ve already said it isn’t my charming company.”

Loki looks at Darcy for long enough that she begins to wonder whether he’s heard her, then says, “I want nothing from you.”

Darcy frowns and opens her mouth; her teeth clack together an instant later. There was a strange emphasis in his tone, a heaviness placed on the word ‘you’. Loki doesn’t want anything from _her_ , so who does he want something from?

Ah. Now she sees. Loki has always been fixated by Thor and the Avengers. This whole time, Darcy’s been wondering why he was after her, when he was actually interested in the Avengers. He probably just wanted to annoy them. Why, though, does he think that she’s the best way to get at them?

Well, if it’s the Avengers that Loki wants, then he shall have them. 

Darcy pushes up, shifting slightly from under Loki, and shouts, “Driver!”

Loki raises his brows, but says nothing. The intercom crackles to life and a tinny voice comes across from the front of the car, “Yes?”

“Call Tony for me, okay? Tell him nine-one-one.”

“Copy,” the driver replies. 

Loki leans forward, pressing the air from Darcy again. He rests his weight against the seat on either side of her and she glares up at him. 

“Coded messages now?” he questions, tone lilting.

Darcy smirks. “No, nothing that fancy. I was just asking Tony to come and find me, seeing as you’ve paid a visit.”

His gaze darkens and she feels his fingers work their way into her hair. 

“What?” she asks, dropping the smirk and going for innocence. “I thought you wanted to see the Avengers. Or did you come for my company after all?” She smiles. 

She feels him move and then her breath disappears and she chokes. Blinking back darkness, Darcy stares at Loki and realizes that he’s lifted her from the seat and is holding her out. He crouches before her and she pushes against his hands, but can’t move them. Her gazes darts around and she sees the city blinking by through the windows; no sign of the Avengers. 

Cold air brushes against her back. Darcy shivers; she twists but can’t see what’s behind her. She allows herself one slow blink, desperately trying to hold on to her composure. She can’t freak out. She can’t show Loki how much he scares her, how much she dreads what he can do to her with a single twitch of his long fingers. 

“I don’t need you, then, do I?” His words are caught between a question and a statement, and Darcy swallows around the terror that surges in her. This is it. He’s finally going to try to kill her. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along,” she chokes out.

“Indeed,” Loki drawls, and shoves her away from him, letting go. 

Darcy expects to feel the floor of the limo under her, but doesn’t, and her stomach flips as she falls and falls and darkness swarms up around her. Above, she watches Loki reach out and pinch the air closed, and vanish to leave her in nothingness. 

Only then does she allow herself to scream. 

-

Two Midgardian minutes later, they arrive. Loki has grown bored with the waiting and begun rifling through the contents of the bag Darcy left upon the car seat, and so when the car rolls to a halt, he glances up, pleasantly surprised. The lights from Stark’s machine flare outside the windows and Loki feels the distant vibration caused by Thor landing upon the pavement.

Loki reaches out and opens the door; he slides out smoothly and straightens. 

“What have you done?” Thor cries as he strides forward, gaze darting towards the open door behind Loki. When no one emerges, he looks to Loki, as though he is unsure whether Loki has _truly_ done what he suspects. He raises Mjolnir. To the side, Stark holds his machine at the ready, its guns burning bright.

Loki raises his eyebrows and glances around the street, noting how quiet and empty it is. “Have you cleared the entire area for me? I’m honored.” His gaze snaps back to Thor and he sneers. “It seems that you finally appreciate my skills.”

Thor opens his mouth to answer, looking stricken, then glances behind him. A low purring sound reaches Loki’s ears and he sees a Midgardian machine approaching, rolling swiftly up the street until its sound deepens to a roar and it rumbles to a stop behind Thor.

The man riding it – small, with dark hair and soft eyes – dismounts and strides forward without pause. 

“Hello, Loki,” he says, and Loki must work hard to conceal the frisson of fear that touches his spine. 

“Dr. Banner,” he replies carelessly, and forces his gaze away.

“Brother.”

Loki’s gaze sharpens and flies back to Thor at the word. He holds his tongue. 

“What have you done with Darcy Lewis?” Thor’s tone is desperate, almost despairing. A strange kind of joy flashes inside of Loki. Can it be, that after all this time and all that he has done, the disappearance of _this girl_ is what has made Thor think the worst of him?

Loki smiles, slow and broad. “The girl? Why, nothing that she did not ask for.”

Banner’s hands clench and his eyes narrow. Thor stiffens and draws himself upright. 

“I do not often regret that you are my brother,” he says, and Loki wonders whether Thor even thinks about the things he says, because that cannot possibly be true. 

“Well, don’t worry then, because I regret calling you my brother enough for the both of us.”

He shifts into his armor, and with a single darting motion snatches Jörmungandr from the Between. Thor raises Mjölnir and Banner steps to the side, clearing space for his change, but Loki is faster than them both. He slams the butt of his spear down upon the pavement and it writhes within his grasp, thickening and twisting into a serpent that coils over his fingers. 

Jörmungandr slithers across the floor, growing with each movement, devouring the energy seething on the street and the city itself. Mjönir stills at the top of its arc, and Loki watches Thor’s muscles strain with the effort of halting his swing. It is nice to know that Loki can still surprise him. 

Banner has shifted completely into the Hulk, which takes one look at Jörmungandr and lets out a deafening roar. Loki takes a step back and his legs hit the side of the car. 

He turns and leaps on top of it, grinning down at the Avengers. 

“I _do_ wish I could stay,” he crows, practically laughing aloud. Jörmungandr will not be easy to subdue, and he cannot be killed. When his task here is done, he will work his way back to Loki, his creator. But, meanwhile… “I hope you enjoy my friend. Make sure you feed him well. Somehow I never quite get around to that.”

He reaches out and rips a door in the air. Jörmungandr coils back upon himself, his thick body readying itself for the strike. His mouth opens, revealing recurved fangs dripping with viscous poison. 

Loki laughs then, a sound of true delight. His gaze catches on the pinprick spot of Barton’s arrow, drawn and aimed at his eye from the top of a nearby building. Loki flashes a smile at him and dives through his door. 

He shapes the runes to close the tear, and the last thing he hears before darkness closes him in is the whistle of an arrow missing him completely, and the hiss of Jörmungandr’s hatred. 

-

Darcy is falling again, but somehow it’s less terrifying than the first time. There are no buildings flying past, no sense of a hard surface rushing towards her. Here in the nothingness, there’s only darkness and quiet.

Of course, if Loki has decided to kill her for good (as she suspects he has), she’ll always have this solitude. 

Her scream dies without an echo, and she doesn’t bother crying out again. Her heart is still pounding and her eyes are still shut – to keep immediate knowledge of the blackness away – but the terror that consumed her in that instant when she fell is gone. 

Instead, she realizes that she’s beaten Loki, in a way. She hasn’t come out the better by any stretch of the imagination, but when you play with Loki, you can’t expect to win with all your cards intact. That, at least, she’s learned. 

He’s gone. Darcy forced Loki to give her up, let her go. He may have killed her, but now he can’t torment her anymore. He’ll have to find a new toy. For a moment she pities whoever it is, but not for long. A bright and swelling sensation begins to fill Darcy. 

She’s free. 

A smile splits her face and she reaches up to touch it. Loki has lost her. He’s the lesser here. She’s outwitted the Prince of Lies.

-

She is laughing. 

Loki can hear the sound echo through the Between, though nothingness surrounds him and she is far from his sight. Sealed into the darkness, safe from the Avengers and with the thrill of the almost-fight draining from him, Loki contemplates leaving her. 

She need never be found. Darcy Lewis would simply be written down as a footnote in the history of Loki and the Avengers, a tragic victim of circumstance. Rendered into nothing but a series of letters and facts. 

He could forget her so easily. But there is something about her laughter – not shrieking and tinged with despair, but joyous and free – that draws Loki forward. His fingers curve into the shape of runes (ones so close to those of his own name), and a small flame flickers into being in the palm of his hand. Loki holds it high and it casts writhing, amorphous shadows.

His witch-light cannot fully illuminate the Between, but it casts enough light that Loki is able to locate her, high above and falling fast. She is curled around herself and small, and even from his distance he can see the bright curve of her smile.

Loki steps forward.

She is light as she falls into his arms, almost like a feather. He feels her heart pounding through her skin and pulls her close. Like she’s been shot, her laughter cuts off and she jolts, then twists in his arms, clawing for purchase. 

The witch-light floats above them as she shoves her hair back and looks at Loki, wide-eyed and disbelieving. 

“No,” she whispers. “No, no, no, no no!” She shoves at him, but this time he doesn’t let go. He holds her steady in his arms and waits for her to subside. 

And so she does, but only to frown at him and say, “You left me here. You threw me in and left me and I was going to die.”

She seems so sure of this. Loki wonders whether he should bother agreeing or not. 

“So why are you here?” Her voice is a wild shriek, and her dark eyes are wide, dancing in the witch-light. “Why did you come back for me? When did I ever say I wanted you to rescue me?”

Loki tilts his head. 

He seizes Darcy by the hair and twists her head to get a better look at her face. She hisses, presumably in pain. Would she really rather have died than see him again? She would not have had a natural death, but wasted away into the nothingness of the Between. It would have been as horrifying an end as possible. Loki would not have wished that upon her, had he paused to consider his actions.

She twists, trying to pull away, and her hands lift and clutch at his sleeves tightly. Her snarl is feral.

He can feel the tension trembling through her, and shapes a spell of seeing – a simple thing, no more than a cantrip – in his mind. Her thoughts become clear, crystalline lines that he can touch and read like arcane verse. 

She will try to kill him. And try again, unless he lets her go. Darcy cannot stand to be confined and she will fight him to the death if he tries to cage her. Yet, if Loki releases her, to return to her life at Stark Tower and with the Avengers, she will fade, wilting like a cut flower. She needs him now. And hates him. She had thought she was free from him when he tossed her into the Between, yet she was wrong, and despises herself for that.

Loki smiles.

He tightens his grip on her hair and shapes a familiar spell, which makes Darcy’s eyelids droop and her muscles loosen until she falls limp, unconscious. Loki shifts her onto his shoulder. 

He begins the long walk across the paths of the Between, to the one place on Midgard which is safe, where Jörmungandr can find him. 

Them. 

He wonders what the Avengers love so much about this girl that they would fight Loki for her again and again. Her fierce individuality is unusual for mortals, Loki believes. Most seem like pathetic sheep to him, bleating and whining to any with power. He does not believe that Darcy would ever bow. 

How odd. 

-

Loki has chosen a small house in the north of Midgard as his… home, for the time. It is little more than three rooms, and sits in a land perpetually covered by ice. It is cold and quiet, and Loki is coming to enjoy his time spent there very much. 

He has furnished the inside of his home with furniture and necessities, chosen for comfort and stolen without fuss. He has a large bed piled with blankets and skins for those cold nights when he does not feel like acknowledging his heritage, a large fireplace to roast meat upon, and a low, carved wooden chair to sit beside it in.

This is where he brings Darcy. 

He lets her body fall into the chair by the fireplace and leaves the fire unlit. Her head lolls, curls falling across her features. Loki looks down upon her, unsure as to what he should do, now that she is fully and completely in his hands. 

This is that point in his plans that he always dreads – the moment when everything balances on the edge of his dagger. 

What next?

-


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go, now! This one was the hardest to write by far, for several reasons:
> 
> Warning #1: Loki is _crazy_.
> 
> Warning #2: This is the chapter where the rape/non-con warning comes in to play. While what happens in this chapter does not technically classify as rape, I believe that it is. I felt that this was necessary in the character development that I'm pushing toward, but I wanted to be sure to warn you all fully before you begin reading, in case this triggers you. I am open to all comments, criticisms, and suggestions on this subject.

Darcy wakes colder than she’s ever been before. She blinks slowly and turns her head to look around; moving feels like the cracking of ice. She hisses at the pain and reaches up, but can’t feel her fingers. 

There’s nothing in the room she recognizes; bare walls with a stone floor are the only things that she sees. A cold, dead fireplace is beside her, a hard wooden chair is beneath her, and a dark doorway into the next room is cut into the far wall. It’s all so gray and dead. 

Darcy’s fingers begin to throb and she pushes against the wood of the chair she’s curled up in. A thought threads itself wearily through her brain: _What has Loki done to her, now?_

She tries again to move, to push her hair back, but can’t feel her hand at all. She lifts it, staring at the dumb appendage, then tucks it close to her, hoping that it will get warmer. That she won’t lose it. 

After a time, the throbbing subsides, and her pain begins to fade. She sinks into the chair and curls tighter, feeling herself begin to warm. Slowly, she slips off into an exhausted sleep.

-

Loki does not sleep often, but the traveling of arcane paths exhausts him like nothing else, and so it turns out that he is sleeping when Darcy awakes. 

He does not sense her shift as he is curled upon the bed in the next room. Instead, he wakes moments after she’s fallen back to sleep and presses himself up from the furs he has piled on the bed. He shifts and stretches, feeling that rare sort of relief which comes when he has no plans imminent. He will not worry about what to do with Darcy, he decides. He will keep her; if she does not find his company suitable, then getting rid of her will be simple. 

Loki walks out into the other room to look at her. He notices that she’s shifted since he left her, and steps closer. She doesn’t respond. He crouches, bouncing on the balls of his feet and peering at her sleeping face. 

Pale. Almost too pale, and with blue-tinged lips. Even among the Asgardians, this is a sign of danger; Loki cannot imagine the danger that this sort of state would pose to a mortal. He purses his lips and reaches out, brushing his fingers across her cheek. 

She is cold and growing colder by the second. 

Loki seizes Darcy’s hands and pulls them away from her chest. She cannot have died on him, and so quickly. He had thought that mortals were stronger than _that_. The girl doesn’t shift or wake as he touches her, but lies quiescent. He ducks his head and presses it against her chest, listens. 

Slowly, slowly, he hears her heart beating. Her breath is quiet in her chest, but warm when he holds his fingers to her lips. Loki frowns and sits back on his heels. She is alive, but will not last long like this. 

Damn her for being so frail, so mortal and weak. 

He shapes the runes for a simple witch-light and casts it to dancing above her, giving off the barest heat. He strides back into the bedroom and pulls one of the furs off the bed; it is the largest one, that of the bear he killed just weeks ago. As Loki pulls it out of the bedroom and over to Darcy, it covers the floor like an enormous rug. 

He drapes it over the girl and tucks it around her.

He stands back and clasps his hands behind his back to wait. He’ll know soon whether Darcy will survive the cold. 

After a few moments, she begins to shake under the blanket; a soft trembling that grows stronger until she wakes, shivering violently, and gasps. She stares at Loki from across the room and hisses, but can’t seem to force words out. 

Loki smiles at her, then retreats to the bedroom.

He is still tired, exhaustion clinging to the edge of his thoughts. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to put sleep off for all those weeks. 

He sits back upon the bed and leans his head against the rough wall, letting the cold sink into his bones like a balm. He will never cease to be grateful that he was born strong; not weak, like a mortal.

Or an Asgardian.

-

When the shaking stops, Darcy’s fingers and toes are still trembling; when she pushes the fur off of her and stands, her legs are unsteady. She forces herself to move, and pushes her way to the second door in the wall, which she hadn’t seen before, and which is closed tight. 

Carefully, she tugs on the handle and it groans open, just an inch. Icy air sweeps through the scant opening, and the breath in Darcy’s chest stutters. She shoves the door closed once more and leans against it for a second. 

When she turns, she searches the room one last time, cataloging the items within. Unless she can break down the chair (unlikely), there’s nothing for her to use. Nothing to help her and no way to escape. She takes a deep breath to brace herself and glances towards the other doorway, empty and dark. 

She shoves away from the wall and stumbles into the next room, the bedroom.

Loki is leaning back against the wall, legs curled under him on the bed. Darcy grits her teeth and perches herself on the edge of the bed; his eyes flick open immediately, and he turns a sharp gaze upon her. 

Darcy leans forward. “I hate you,” she whispers, her voice cracking. She hates herself for it, for her inability to think up the words she needs to express her feelings. “I hate you _so_ much. You’ve ruined my life, you piece of shit, you absolute _cunt_. I can’t even tell you—“

Loki seizes her and shoves her back with a lunge, pressing her back into the furs that cover the bed. Her voice chokes and cuts off. She spits at him, wordless. Loki’s lips twist and his magic whisks away her spittle. She jerks away from the power, not wanting to feel it on her.

He leans close. “You are not the first to despise me so,” he whispers, “and you will not be the last. You should be grateful that I allow you to live at all.” He sits back, letting her go, and shrugs his shoulders casually. His gaze is evaluating. “Besides, you cannot hate me so much; if you did, you would have killed yourself to keep away from me.”

The blood in Darcy’s veins freezes. She almost died in that nothingness that Loki threw her into, before he’d caught her. Darcy had thought that she was free, but now she’s beginning to think that not even death will keep Loki away.

She forces a laugh out and sneers at Loki, pushing up onto her elbows. “Don’t tempt me,” she hisses, and Loki’s hands tighten to vices; his knees pin her hips down and she twists violently against him, flailing.

Her legs slip off the bed, and Loki hauls her fully onto the bed and presses her down so tight that her breath wheezes in her chest. Nearly choking, Darcy goes still, and concentrates on not dying. Loki watches her, gaze dispassionate. As she calms, his knees tighten around her hips, forcing her deeper into the furs.

Another fear streaks through her, one much deeper and more sickening than the image of her own death. 

“Is this what you wanted?” she manages, lifting her chin and blinking back tears from the pain that snaps through her; Loki’s grip is not just harsh, but damaging. She is spread upon the bed, vulnerable, and she hates it.

His hand snaps up and seizes her jaw, forcing it closed. She snaps at him, but can’t catch his skin before he silences her. 

“This is not what I wanted,” Loki snaps, his voice thrumming with irritation. Darcy fights back a sneer, though she knows that Loki can’t see it anyway, with his fingers covering her mouth. She hadn’t imagined he’d be so _virtuous_ in this situation. 

“I would never touch a filthy mortal like you unless it was necessary,” Loki says, and his gaze darkens. He looks furious, and absolutely crazy. “And the thought that I would use your body for pleasure is… unthinkable.”

The insult hits home, despite the fact that Darcy doesn’t care what Loki thinks of her. Her eyes sting. 

Loki leans close, and Darcy twists against him, away as far as possible. His lips turns up into a half-smile. “Though it would be so lovely to see you beg,” he croons, and his fingers dig into her flesh. 

“Ah!” Darcy shouts, the sound muffled. 

Sensation courses through her, the pain twined with pleasure and shooting straight down to her hips. The foreign sensation wracks her, unexpected, and she shudders, realizing instantly that Loki has cast a spell on her and aroused her by force. It’s horrifying. She wants to fight, kick him in the balls and force him away, but the arousal has curled into a hot ball in her clit, shortening her breath and making her want _more_.

She forces that need away and reaches up, prying at Loki’s fingers on her mouth. Her mind ticks off the possibilities. First thing first, get Loki’s hand off her. His eyes are narrowed, watching her. She forces one finger from her mouth, than another. And his hand clamps down tighter, wrenching her fingers. 

The heat throbs within her, drawing a low moan from her that she closes her eyes to avoid thinking about; the pleasure grows faster, hotter. 

Loki isn’t moving; he’s not doing anything but touching her and sending his magic coursing through her. His eyes are filled with an unspeakable hate, and the power moving within her is growing stronger. 

Darcy feels like she’s strangling. She can breathe through her nose, but a suffocating panic forces itself up her throat and into her brain. She kicks against the bed, pushing furs away from her, but doing little else. Her mind screams to be let go. She needs to breath, and move, and have this feeling _out of her_. 

It makes her want to be sick, but her body wants Loki; it _needs_ him, and that desire is only growing stronger. 

A tiny corner of her brain hisses to her, _He’s making his spell stronger. Whatever he’s doing, he’s making it worse. He wants to destroy you,_ and she knows that it’s the truth. 

Darcy’s hips hitch, pressing against Loki’s thighs where they hold her down. Her body wants the sensation and the touch. Darcy’s gorge rises and she forces it back; if she vomits now, she’ll only choke under Loki’s grasp. Besides, everything happening within her is turning to pleasure; her body is betraying her with its every movement. 

“I am not so abhorrent to you after all, am I?” Loki sneers. 

Only her mind is safe from him. For the moment. 

_Don’t break. Don’t break_ , it whispers to her, and Darcy is bewildered for a moment before she remembers. She had promised herself that she would bend with Loki’s will, that she would match him in all things so that she wouldn’t go mad. This is nothing like she’d imagined, something so much worse than she’d ever thought, and yet Darcy knows that she can’t give in to him. She has to _bend_ , give in just enough so that Loki is satisfied, and yet still keep her mind clear.

So she lets her body move the way it wants to, rubbing up against Loki with shaking motions as her mind weeps, forcing the spread of pleasure further until it burns through her to the tips of her fingertips and the ends of her toes. And she finds that it isn’t quite so bad as she’d imagined; with her eyes closed, she can imagine for quick instants that she is somewhere else, with someone else. 

Her mind always returns, though, to the image of Loki crouched above her. Clad in black leather and deep green, his strong hands pressing her down effortlessly and his pale eyes burning with an inhuman lack of interest in her and a deep, implacable hatred. 

A sob catches in that back of her throat and her cunt throbs and she comes, shuddering. Loki’s fingers loosen enough to allow her to moan aloud and his thighs move away. 

He shifts off her, and she pushes, feet digging into the furs and half-slipping. She moves; she scrambles away from him and onto the floor, forgetting to kick him in the balls in her haste to get away. The cold of the stones runs up her with a shock, distracting her for an instant from the lingering burn inside her, the tenderness in her clit. 

_Bend_ , she whispers to herself, not so much words as an internal scream. Darcy allows her arms to curl around herself as she watches Loki.

She shifts back, further and further from him – and the bed – until she hits the wall and stays there, the icy cold stone writing trails of frostbite on her back and chasing the memory of pleasure away. 

She watches him without blinking, hating him without pause as her heart pounds rabbit-fast.

-

She crouches, pressed against the wall. Loki flexes his fingers, letting the thick musk of the his magic seep from the air. He can see that her heart beats fast and her breaths are still short. She did not even attempt to resist him when he cast his magic upon her; though, of course, any magical resistance from a mortal would be extremely unlikely.

He wishes that, just this once, she had had the magic necessary to fight him off.

When Loki shifts his weight and slides off the bed, her hands clench into fists; the hard set of her jaw and the murderous intent in her eyes betray her desire to attack him.

It’s galling, that after all this time, and all that he has done to her, Darcy is still fighting him. It seems that no matter how much the monster he acts, he can’t dissuade her.

His gaze shifts away from her glare; he turns away and walks to the doorway, pauses. 

Loki knows that he has acted atrociously towards Darcy. He is not a fool; indeed, he was once considered the most practiced in diplomacy of all Asgardians. He can justify his kidnappings of Darcy through strategy and the price one pays when fighting in a war. Darcy was a casualty. But his most recent attack upon her – the most recent one, in which his forced pleasure upon her with his magic – went beyond what even he thought that he could do. 

Loki flexes his fingers and pulls them close to quell the sudden sickness that rises within him. It was just that she’d thought so little of him. She had considered him a monster, and when confronted with her cutting gaze, all he had done was his best to become that monster. 

He walks away, into the room with the fireplace, and past that, to the door leading to the frozen wasteland beyond. He almost glances back to see whether her expression has changed – relaxed into relief because he has gone, or twisted into hatred in anticipation of later attacking him.

Oh, how he has changed her.

He turns away and lets the cold seep into his bones. 

-

When Loki returns, he is ice inside and out, and though the winters of Midgard are not enough to bring out his Jotun heritage fully, he can feel the tinge of red in his eyes. He feels nothing but cold inside. 

As he steps inside, the heat from the fire sears him. 

Loki shudders and purses his lips. Darcy is curled in the armchair by the fire, and is staring into the flames. She seems collected, though snarls mat her curls and her sweater is torn at the shoulder. 

She glances up, seemingly calm. “How long do you plan to keep me here?”

“How long do you plan to keep asking questions?” Loki snaps back, unthinking. She is resourceful, to have started a fire. Still, he can see the soft shivers running up and down her spine – in this clime, a single fire is not enough.

“Until I get some answers,” she says. 

Where does her composure come from? He had expected to find her shattered, or at the very least unnerved, but his presence seems to mean nothing to her.

“Then you will be waiting a long time. I am the god of tricks, and lies, and disappointment. I will never give you what you want.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow slightly and she pushes up out of the chair. “’Disappointment’? That sounds like self-pity to me. Strange, since I though you were supposed to be the most egotistical, self-centered madman out there. Where’s that villain I’ve come to know and love?” Her voice drips with contempt, and Loki must fight not to react to it. 

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Loki hisses, and an illusion flows out over his skin, cloaking him in the form of Clint Barton. He draws himself up and smiles. “I would think that you,” he says, and steps forward, grasping Darcy by the chin with a whip-snap motion and shoving her back, “would know better than to judge a book by it’s cover.”

Darcy jerks away, but can’t go far. A harsh bark of a laugh bursts from her. “Learning some mortal idioms, are we? You’re a good student, if you’re lowering yourself to this level.” 

Disbelief flashes through Loki and his illusion unravels. “I would _never_ pretend to be mortal,” he hisses. 

“You just did,” Darcy snaps.

His illusion was nothing; it did not make him mortal, or even bring him close to being one. Loki would never pretend to such a weakness. His hand shifts to cup the back of Darcy’s neck, pulling her close. Her skin is cool to the touch, though her blood still runs hot; he can feel the heat of it tingling against his fingertips. 

He is not mortal; the blood that courses through his veins is cold as ice.

Darcy stares up at him, anger burning in the depths of his gaze. He can see now that she was never indifferent to him; she has simply buried her hate so deep in her soul that he cannot see the difference any more – she has become what he has forced her to be, and it is something much more than mortal.

Loki kisses her, pressing their lips together and moving until they are almost, but not quite, pressed against each other. She kicks, her heel digging into the arch of his foot and her knee slamming upwards into his groin. His armor protects him, but he drags her closer to limit her movement. Her arms snake between them and push him away, but barely. She is too weak to do more. 

He tightens his grip on her hair and bends her backwards, parts her lips and exhales an icy breath into her mouth. She shudders and he breathes again, pouring ice into her lungs and blood, into her mind. 

He casts no spell to force her to respond to him, so she fights. 

Darcy bites his lip, savaging it with the sharp edges of her teeth. The thick taste of Loki’s blood blooms within his mouth and he ends the exhalation, pulling away. The cool drip of his blood slides down his chin and he tilts his head, staring down at Darcy. 

Her lips are smeared bright red. 

When Loki looks into her lidded gaze, he sees that her irises are tinged red as well. She sways against him, numb and her mind wandering.

Loki feels much warmer inside. He has rid himself of some of the cold that comes with his heritage and claimed a bit of mortal warmth instead. It is surprisingly fortifying. 

For only himself, though. Loki lets go, and Darcy sags. Loki reaches back out and gathers her close, lifting her and turning. Darcy groans, and Loki carries her into the bedroom. He lays her down upon the furs and pulls them on top of her. A quick touch to her cheek shows him that her skin has chilled. Her lips are turning blue. 

It is a bad sign for a mortal. But Darcy doesn’t shiver in an attempt to stay warm, and the beat of her heart doesn’t slow. She is more, now. Better than mortal.

Darcy’s eyes wander the room, unseeing, and she draws in on herself. She shudders. 

He leaves her there; he walks away from the small cottage and lets the cold pour into him once more. But this time, instead of running to drive the thoughts from his head, he allows himself to sink into the drifts of snow and lean against the hard ice underneath. After a time it turns him dark and blue and horrible, but he finds he doesn’t care much.

After all, the small kernel of mortal warmth that he stole still burns bright inside of him.

-


	6. Chapter 6

There is a tingling in Darcy’s fingers and toes that she hasn’t felt in… well, she can’t remember how long. She smiles to herself, allowing a small spark of happiness grow inside of her. She’s warm and comfortable, with soft fur pressing against her cheek and cozy warmth covering her. 

She’s so glad to be home. 

Something niggling, nasty, and sneaky creeps into Darcy’s thoughts. She pushes it away, turning onto her side and burrowing into the soft blankets. They really do feel remarkably like fur – maybe Stark has invested in quality bedclothes for someone other than himself, for once. She can’t recall, really, and doesn’t care. 

The light is dim, but she pushes her face into the fur, wanting the morning sun to just _go away_ , so that she can sleep a moment longer, avoid class for as long as possible. It doesn’t seem likely. 

The worm of a terrible feeling wriggles its way back in to Darcy, making her stomach churn with unease. 

She frowns and curls up tight, trying not to think. It works only for a moment. The sensation clings this time, like that shampoo she can never quite get out, and she begins to feel awful – worn out and sick. 

Darcy pushes herself up and forces her eyes open, squinting around. 

Ah. So, not home after all. 

She closes her eyes again, swallowing latent nausea as she shoves back the furs covering Loki’s bed and pulls her legs close. She might throw up right now, and she knows it won’t be quick and easy – she hasn’t eaten in she can’t remember how long, and she doesn’t want to start dry heaving now. 

She swallows thickly and slides off the bed. The cold of the floor is shocking, clearing her nausea up partly. Her toes tingle, and she shakes her head to clear it. 

She isn’t as cold as she should be. Darcy remembers being cold before, how she’d gone numb and almost fallen asleep. She had almost died then, until Loki saved her.   
But he’s gone now. She listens carefully, but can’t hear him – only the sound of her own breath. 

Slowly, she moves, pulling her thin shirt tight around her. She goes to the brightest corner of the room, as far from Loki’s bed as she can get, and sinks down into it. She draws her knees into her chest and rests her chin on them, watching the door. 

Her breath mists in front of her, and she can feel her cheeks prick with the cold, but her fingers don’t go numb again, and after a time she learns to relax; physically comfortable, at least.

-

She has gone over the memories for hours. 

They replay themselves in her mind unceasingly, and she’s sick of them. Darcy can feel the press of Loki’s thighs against her, weighing her down so that she can barely struggle. She can feel the twist of his slim fingers against her mouth, strong as cords holding her silent. She can feel the pleasure within her, stronger than any she’s felt before and wonderful for it, but sickeningly tainted with Loki’s magic and presence. She feels the softness of his kiss, and the horror of his breath slipping into her, changing her.

The flesh-memories make her shudder. She wants nothing more than for her dream to be true – that she’s home, warm in bed, and that none of this ever happened. Maybe she’s hallucinated the whole thing?

Darcy is tempted to pinch herself, but resists; she’d like to keep the option of pretending that this is all a dream rather than giving in to reality so quickly. 

She smiles slightly and rubs at her eyes. She must have slept surprisingly well, because she doesn’t really feel tired at the moment. 

This little house isn’t so bad, now that she has a chance to look around. It is small and bare, but cozy. She’s always liked minimalist style, so the simple bed with furs suits her. 

If only it wasn’t Loki’s. Him being gone is probably the best thing for her. She doesn’t want to see him or deal with him – it will only make her sick and angry again. She just wants to pretend that none of this happened for the moment. 

After a moment more, Darcy pushes herself up from the corner. There’s not use sitting there – it isn’t going to change a thing. 

She has no way to contact the Avengers. Unless they devise some irrational and yet brilliant way of tracking her (or have concealed a tracking device on her somewhere; Darcy wouldn’t put it past Fury), there is no way she’s going to be rescued. She hadn’t really considered it as an option until now. 

She shakes her head to clear it; it’s ridiculous, what she’s thinking. She can’t afford hope. Loki has her, once and for all. She could kill him, but that would leave her here, alone, with no way to get back t the Avengers. She doesn’t even know if she’s on _Earth_ right now.

Darcy frowns and pads across the floor, passing into the next room, tension thrumming through her as she makes her way to the outer door and listens for Loki. 

Once there, she leans forward and holds her breath. There is no noise, no sign of him. 

She tugs on the wrought metal handle of the door, all sharp edges and burning cold, and the door slowly opens. It’s heavy. Darcy leans out, and blinks for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the light. 

Then she realizes that there’s nothing wrong with her eyes; the land beyond the door is bleak and pale, covered with snow and ice and nothing more. It’s featureless and blank, like a giant sheet of paper was tossed onto the earth and left there. 

The cold bites at her cheekbones, but she doesn’t shiver. 

She draws back inside, refusing to think of why; of what Loki’s breath has done to her. 

She had been so _cold_ when she Loki first brought her here. How can she been warm now?

Darcy leans forward and presses her forehead to the frozen wood of the door, letting the chill seep into her and bring some calm. 

-

It takes a few hours, by Darcy’s reckoning, before she grows bored. 

The house is peaceful, but too quiet. There is nothing to do besides sit next to the fire or burrow into furs on the bed, and she doesn’t want to do either. She refuses to give into Loki and lie down, waiting for him. 

So Darcy bites her lip, brow furrowed in thought. Her choices as she sees them are such: run away, or make the best of it. 

Now, she’s all for running away. If it gets her where she wants to go, Darcy will run until her feet bleed. But one glance out the door has confirmed her worst fears – she’s too far from anything she knows to run home, and probably not even on Earth. It’s a painful reality. 

She has to make the best of this. _Well,_ her mind snarls, _these are some truly shitty lemons_. The thought makes her smile, and she bitches to herself as she walks into the bedroom and hauls one of the largest furs off the bed. 

She’s going to look for Loki and confront her fears. But she won’t pretend to be immune to the cold; no matter how he’s changed her, she’ll show him how human she is, and how proud of it she is.

-

The fur trails behind Darcy as she wades through the snow; it is heavy and cumbersome, and it makes her almost too hot, but she forges on. She can see Loki’s tracks ahead of her, even through the snow is melting on her glasses and her hair is sticking to her cheeks. She shoves it back and continues. 

She’s been walking for some time. The house has vanished into the blankness behind her, and she’s beginning to wonder what she is doing.

Darcy imagines herself as one of those wandering ghosts from the fairy tales: she will wander this wintry landscape forever, never quite dying and never quite living, pale enough to frighten away any who see her. She certainly hasn’t seen the sun yet, so she’s sure that she won’t get a tan. 

Caught in her imagination, she nearly misses him. Loki is buried in a deep drift of snow, his dark hair and clothing standing out even through the swirling snow that drifts through the air like bad confetti. 

She makes her way towards him, slowly.

-

The bear has returns for him. He can see it, creeping closer, thick fur matted and limp, nearly falling from its bones. He can’t quite glimpse the bright red of the entrails falling from its stomach, but he knows the something is terribly wrong.

He took the bear’s heart. And he holds it still. So how can it have returned, to hunt him this time?

It takes Loki a long moment to realize that what he is seeing is only the skin of a bear, carried by a slim girl with flushed cheeks and a wary look in her eyes.

“Come to kill me, have you?” Loki cannot imagine how she’ll do it, but he saw the hatred in her eyes before, and he knows that it is the only reason that she would follow him here to the frozen wastes. 

Darcy does not respond. She pauses and then comes forward again, wading through snows that rise almost to her thighs to reach him. 

Her lips purse before she finally speaks. “I won’t hurt you,” she says. “I couldn’t if I tried, and we both know it.” She stops, and her gaze studies his face. 

Loki knows that he looks pathetic and weak. He had been in the snows for hours – long enough that his eyes are back to red and his skin is beginning to tint blue. His hair is wet and limp and his heavy clothes cling to his skin. Yet ha cannot bring himself to care. 

He wishes that Darcy would at least _try_ to kill him. Maybe that would lend him more vigor. 

“I won’t fight you, either,” Darcy says, and Loki’s wandering attention snaps back to her. 

Has he broken her, finally? Something twists inside him; a deep pang rises, nameless, and he forces the feeling away.

“On one condition,” she finishes. 

“And what would that be,” Loki manages. 

“You will swear, on your honor as… well, as yourself, to never touch me again. I don’t ever want to feel your hand on me, or your body, or even your breath. You have to _stay away_.” Her voice wavers on the last words, but she swallows hard and straightens, pulling the fur close around her. 

Loki absently notices that she doesn’t appear cold. 

Should he acquiesce? It is true that the thought of touching her again fills him with revulsion – she is human, weak and dirty. But it is more than that, his mind whispers, because you cannot forget what you did to her. He pushes that voice away and hesitates.

A small, pale hand snakes its way out from under the bear’s fur and reaches toward him. It is as if she can sense the debate raging within him. He should have spoken sooner, refused her outright. 

“Do you swear?” she asks. 

He nods, caged by indecision. “I swear,” he says.

Her hand is small and pale, so delicate. Loki reaches out and allows her to grasp him, and pulls himself up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it! I don't normally post stories in chaptered form (because I find the process tedious), but all of the comments and kudos that I received really motivated me to continue and make this as good as I possibly could. Thank you all!


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